January 2017

January 30, 2017

Hi, its Andrea! Today I am going to share with you some fabulous valentine ideas, using the gorgeous “Heart Day” collection, which you can then use to make something special for the ones that you love!

Every year for Valentines Day I make valentines for my special someone – namely, my hubby, Ryan. This year I was so excited to work on my valentines for Ryan and my friends and family! I am in love with all the polka dots and all the cute images like the heart emoji faces and the sweet little cartoon girls.

For one of my simpler valentines, I just made a fun little tag out of some of the pretty heart paper, a piece of ephemera, a sticker and some thicker letters that spell out the word “love”. For the other simple valentine, I used a pretty piece of the patterned paper, folded it into a simple square card, added a cool chipboard sticker and some ribbon and sewing to make a simple card that is great for anyone you care about. Just add a little phrase sticker to the inside of the card that says “be mine” or “i adore you” and it will make your recipient feel super special.

For a more time-consuming, but oh so worth it, valentine I made a really cool fringed heart card. I folded some patterned paper in half and then I drew a big heart on the paper with a pencil and cut the shape out so that the fold was on the right side and I had myself a cool heart shaped card. I then used several different patterned papers from the collection, cut then into long strips that were about an inch wide and then proceeded to cut fringe into my strips with my scissors. I adhered the strips of fringe to the front of my card. I chose to add some vellum and a chipboard heart to the front, I stitched across the top of my heart and I added a little tag and a couple of cute “x” and “o” paperclips to the top of my heart to finish it off. I think this card is the perfect Valentine to give to my heart – my hubby Ryan!

For the last valentine, I used one of the pre-made valentine cards that come in the collection, with the cute images on the front, and the “to” and “from” note card on the back, and I created a sweet little envelope to slide the card into. For my envelope closure, I added a couple of cute heart emoji stickers that I adhered to buttons to add a whole lot of cute factor to the front of my envelope! A couple of stickers at the bottom finish things off for a fun little envelope that you can use to slide one of the “Heart Day” valentines into!

I had so much fun making these valentines! I also just want to mention that every year for Valentines Day, my hubby and I, in addition to making cards for each other, also like to write each other long love letters! And this year, I decided that for my handwritten letter, I will be using one of the simple white envelopes that comes with the pre-made valentines and one of the amazing “Heart Day” fringed heart embellishment stickers attached to the front, for a fun little envelope to put my love letter in! I cannot wait for Valentines Day and I hope these ideas have helped give you some inspiration for your valentines! Have a Happy Valentines Day everyone and remember, love letters are always a good idea, whether is February 14th...or a Tuesday! ;-)

January 27, 2017

Hello there, Karen for Crate Paper here today. Do you like to keep a journal? I do & so do my girls. I’ve instilled in my three girls to keep a diary or a journal at this young age because it will be a great keepsake & one day in years to come they will have something to look back on, read, & those special memories & times spent with loved ones will be treasured, remembered & shared.

Ruby will soon be eleven & off to a fabulous camp in 2017 over the winter season, so as a surprise I’ve purchased her a travellers notebook binder & insert to take with her. I’m hoping she will record her special time away from home with friends in her journal. To make it easier, I’ve already got it ready, well, it was easy because I had lots of fun creating it.

I choose an aqua colour travel binder as Ruby is a lover of anything blue – ish. I then added some cute products inside for her to use as she records, such as a pen, stickers, paper clips, notepaper & sticky notes.

I then added some small stickers from the Snow & Cocoa collection to the inside of the notebook insert so that she is ready to just write away.

The best thing about a notebook insert is that once it’s finished you can leave it in the binder & use another insert to record another milestone or memory. I thought a great idea would be that Ruby can now use this binder for all her camps right through school. Brilliant. I’m always looking for ways to get my girls to write, so this is perfect.

I hope I’ve inspired you today to get creative & record all your sweet memories.

January 25, 2017

Hello there everyone! It is Andrea here and today I want to share with you a layout I made for the New Year using the fantastic Snow & Cocoa collection! I love this collection! It has been so much fun to use to document and create for Christmastime and I think it is perfect for the New Year too! It is 2017 now and as we move through January and get more and more comfortable with writing the new date and planning for a new year, it is important I think, to document the resolutions you have made so that you will be reminded of them and rise to meet them not only for this month, but all year long!

Every year for New Years Eve I write out my resolutions and I am guessing that a lot of you do as well. Snow & Cocoa has so many lovely and versatile patterns and that includes the bold and beautifully simply black and white pattern that I chose to use for the background of my layout. To add a bit more color to my layout, I framed the black and white with a pop of pretty and bright pink!

I chose to make five resolutions that I explained in depth. Keeping the list short helps to keep the layout looking sharp and neat. I printed the resolutions out on some plain vellum and sewed the vellum onto my page, with some sequins and glittered snowflake stickers sprinkled inside. The fun look of the sequins and glitter in the layout also help create a magical quality that I also feel fits the theme of my page.

I decided to add a few snowflakes on top of the vellum as well with a couple of stickers from the sticker sheet and a cool transparency snowflake from the ephemera pack all grouped towards the top of my page.

I added a few extra touches like some other little label stickers and a cute pink and white tag. And to really make my resolutions pop, I used the black thickers from the collection to number and call special attention to each item on my list.

The pics I used to express my resolutions are some cute photo-booth style pics I took with my hubby a while back. I have not had the best of luck these past couple of months with my health, but I am super hopeful that this new year will be a new start for me and I have a lot of faith that the future will be filled with much happiness and much magic!

January 23, 2017

Hi there CP fans!It's Gina, and I'm here to share a winter layout with you, using the festive Snow & Cocoa collection!I love that this collection can be used for winter photos and some of the papers and pieces work well for everyday moments as well.

One of my favorite patterned papers in this collection is the Sweater patterned paper.I used the B side of this paper (the light woodgrain) to create the base of my layout.I then cut out my background using the Nordic Background cut file from the Just Nick cut file store.After I cut out my background piece, I placed various patterned papers behind the design.

I placed a small black and white photo on the right side of my layout and then built my title below it using foam thickers and chipboard.After my photo and title were in place the rest of my layout came together quickly by adding stickers, die cuts and additional chipboard pieces from the collection.I finished off my design by using my sewing machine to stitch a few of my pieces down.

I can't wait to see how you are using the Snow and Cocoa collection to document your winter memories!

January 20, 2017

Hi everyone! Are you tired of the cold weather yet? Do you find yourself looking forward to warmer temperatures? I know that I am! The new Oasis collection has me wishing for warmer days and is perfect for those tropical and summer photos!

To create my layout I started by using white cardstock as the base of my layout. Next, I chose patterned papers from the Oasis collection to create the background for my layout. I used a simple diamond shape in Silhouette Studio to create my background. I repeated the shape in various sizes to create a whole background of diamonds. Next, I cut out different patterned papers from the collection one by one to create my page.

Once all of my diamond shapes were cut out, I used a sewing machine to stitch each layer down. Next, I printed a photo and placed it in the center of my layout. For my last step, I added lots of ephemera pieces to embellish my layout and finished it up by adding a button and letter thickers.

I hope that you found some inspiration today on how to use the new Oasis collection!

January 19, 2017

Hello, Crate fans! We love to share fun things with you and we thought printables would be perfect! Bring the beautiful Chasing Dreams artwork into your home. There are 3 beautiful options to choose from—download them here.

January 18, 2017

Hello CP friends! I've always love spending time with my family in every possible ways & being one is by travelling. We have gone for vacation both local and also overseas. Every now & then, we will do staycation. Another fun way to have a weekend getaway with our girls.

My daughter loves animals just like her daddy. In 2015, we brought our eldest daughter to visit the bird park. It was the one of the best trip ever the weekend. She loved every moment of it! And the best part, I got to document this special photo of them both with real life birds as props.

Let me share with you on the creative process. Firstly, I started by placing the photo onto the pre-cut circle design that I cut with the help of my Silhouette. Then followed by layering the fun leaves patterned paper beneath. Next, I adhered the photo and worked my way around the photo.

I adhered lots of pretty embellishments around the layout & stamped part of the title with the alpha clear stamps. Got to love the mixed elements on the title!

Adding different kind of embellishments will certainly create different textures and dimensions.

Once I'm done with the embellishments, I took a good look. I wanted to include more texture to my layout & decided to use crepe paper. I applied some adhesive and gently crumpled the crepe paper and create ruffles. Then I double sewed around the edges to complete my layout.

January 16, 2017

Hi everyone, I don't know about you but the new Oasis collection makes me want to go on a vacation! I'm totally amazed by this new line. I find it so great. It's so fun and colorful. The year 2017 starts very strong with Crate Paper!

Today I created a page with a photo of friends in Florida. I find it perfect for OASIS. It even makes me want to make and send them a mini album!

To start my page, I selected 3 printed papers that I cut into strips and glued on the top of a white cardstock by supperposing them slightly. Then I prepared the part where I wanted to insert my photo. I cut a rectangle in the paper with circles and for the superposition of printed papers I cut 3 triangles to make corners.

The next step I pasted my photo to begin the decoration of my page. I selected several die-cuts from the ephemera pack that I pasted to the left and right of the photo; tags, cactus, flamingo...

Under the picture I placed my title with pretty golden stickers. I already know that I will use them everywhere. I love this type of product that I find practical and it changes from a classical alphabet. The effect is very nice in all types of projects.

I added the place and the date with 2 strips of typewritten text. To finish I pasted 2 pieces of masking tape cut in pennant and a wreath in chipboard. It adds a little thickness and brings out the picture.

January 13, 2017

Hi everyone, I am very glad to share my first post in this new year and my first project with the splendid collection CHASING DREAMS by Maggie Holmes. As always, it's a feminine collection with a beautiful combo of colors, very nice embellishments and touches of gold. A perfect set!

When I had this new collection in my hands I immediately wanted to make a mini album. It's difficult for me to cut the magnificent papers of Maggie Holmes, but it was necessary to start. I chose 2 pretty tags for the cover that I superimposed on a tracing paper. On the top tag I sewed a paper floral embellishment.

Then I chose some printed papers to cut out to prepare my pages including one with all the cutting tags (ADVENTURE paper). I chose to cut them in different formats in order to give a slightly unstructured effect to the album.

I also like to highlight pretty papers or tags by inserting pages without photos like I did here. Under the little swan, I added an envelope to store other photos of the series.

Once the pages were finished, I added my sewing and I pasted the two-sided pages in order to perforate them to connect them with a small ring. As a small finishing touch, I added a small tassel from the Cute Girl collection. I love them and I think they fit in with every collection.

January 11, 2017

Oh how I love working with a brand new collection from Crate Paper!It’s Ashley, and I’m here today to share my first layout with the new Chasing Dreams collection by Maggie Holmes.I am in love with the colors and fun embellishments and of course, the beautiful patterned papers!I am so glad I have two girls, which allows me to go full on girly with this collection, but there are great patterns and elements that can also be used for masculine layouts.

Our middle daughter’s birthday is the day after Christmas, and I always have a photo shoot for each of the kids for their birthday.Emma’s photo shoot is never boring, because it usually involves funny faces, stuffed animals and a Peruvian hat.I captured some great shots of her, and this one pretty much sums this girl up!As I looked through the Chasing Dreams patterned papers, the Delicate pattern caught my eye.I loved the Pink on Pink polka dots and the large pattern.I wanted to make it even more interesting, so I layered the Glitter on Acetate paper over it.

If you’re intimidated by using the Acetate papers, it’s very easy.Here’s what I like to do.Start out by figuring out the rough design for your layout…where you want to place your photo and any embellishments.Once you have that in mind, add adhesive to your background paper and then place your Acetate sheet over it.This will secure the Acetate to your background paper and the adhesive will be hidden behind your photo and embellishments.You can also add a bit of machine stitching, if you have a sewing machine, for extra adhesion.

I tend to use smaller photos on my layouts, but I wanted this photo a bit larger, so it wouldn’t get lost in the embellishments and background paper.I used a mix of the Ephemera Pieces, Puffy Stickers, word phrase Stickers and Chipboard to create a layered banner under the photo.I wanted a simple title, so our daughter’s name was perfect for the layout.I grabbed one of the tags from the Ephemera Pieces pack and layered the title over it, using the Cloud Puffy Letter Stickers.

When I have a large polka dot, I can’t resist placing embellishments in the center of the circle!I wanted to fill several of the polka dots around the layout with a mix of embellishments from Chasing Dreams.I used the Vintage Buttons, Puffy Stickers, Stickers and Collect Chipboard Stickers to balance out the design on the layout.

If you missed the reveal of the full Chasing Dreams collection, make sure you check it out on the Blog.I know I can’t wait to create more layouts and projects with this amazing collection!